Why does calling it skill or will change the fix?
The label decides the fix. Practice and feedback close a skill gap. A will gap points to the job or the relationship around it. A wrong label sends help where it is not needed and leaves the real cause of the underperformance in place.
Both causes are real. A 2018 meta-analysis of up to 55 samples found cognitive ability and motivation about equally important to job performance, their effects adding together. Cognitive ability differs from sales skill, and the research was not specific to sales. Most studies captured one point in time.
The label changes the manager too. Jean-François Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux studied how bosses create their own poor performers, in a 1998 Harvard Business Review article and a 2002 book built on ten years of study. Bosses tend to control the people they see as weaker more closely, which can wear down confidence and drive until the work sinks to match the boss's view.
What questions tell a skill problem from a will problem?
Six questions, and one that sits under all of them.
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Have I seen this person do the work well, even once?
One instance of good work tells you the skill exists somewhere. Then the useful question is what was different that time, such as the account or the support around it. If you have never seen it, you do not yet know whether the person can do the work, and calling it will is a guess. Be honest about whether your evidence is something you watched or something someone told you.
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What changes when I work alongside them?
Joining a site walk or a bid review shows you the work as it happens. Notice which parts improve with a prompt from you and which stay the same. Notice too whether the effort holds after you leave. Write down what you saw before you name it. The pattern carries more information than any single outcome, and good sales coaching starts there.
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What in the system could produce this result whoever held the role?
In Out of the Crisis, W. Edwards Deming sorted most troubles and possibilities for improvement by where they come from. His estimate, which he framed as his own experience, was that "94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management)" and 6% to special causes. He gave no breakdown for sales. His Red Bead Experiment makes the same point with "willing workers" whose results are limited by the system they work in. On a sales team the system includes the territory, the pay plan, the quoting tools and the manager's own coaching. If others in the same seat show the same shortfall, look at the seat before the person.
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What does the person say is getting in the way?
Ask in a one-on-one and listen longer than feels comfortable. Specific answers, like a quote that takes a day to build or a handoff that loses customers, point at the system. Vague answers can mean the person does not trust you yet, or does not know where the work goes wrong, and both are worth knowing. The 2018 meta-analysis also found that motivation measured in the moment predicted performance better than motivation measured as a stable trait, so a change in the person's situation deserves a real hearing.
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Has anyone told them plainly what good looks like?
A seller who cannot describe a strong week will struggle to produce one. A 2010 meta-analysis of 268 studies published from 1982 to 2008, covering about 80,000 salespeople, found role ambiguity among five factors with a significant link to sales performance, and the link was negative. Ask the person to describe good work in their own words and compare it with your own description. A gap between the two belongs to the manager first.
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How have I treated this person since I formed a view?
This is the pattern Manzoni and Barsoux describe, seen from your side of the desk. Look back at your own deal reviews and one-on-ones since the concern began. Fewer chances to own good work and more checking on small tasks can drain the drive you set out to diagnose.
"What have I seen this person do, and what am I assuming?"
This question sits under the others because each of them produces either something you saw or something you inferred. Sort the two before you act. The fix for skill and the fix for will pull in different directions, and a wrong label costs the person a fair chance and costs you a quarter.
What are the signs you have diagnosed skill or will correctly?
Good signs
- You can name a specific piece of work you watched behind your view.
- The person's account of what gets in the way matches something you saw.
- Your view changed after you worked alongside them.
- You checked whether others in the same seat show the same pattern before deciding.
- The person describes good work in the same terms you would.
Warning signs
- The label came before any time spent alongside the person.
- A review says the person "doesn't want it" with no example attached.
- Several people in the same seat show the same gap, and each file has a different explanation.
- Since you formed your view, the person has had fewer chances to show the work.
- The person first heard about the concern in a formal plan.
Case study Fictitious numbers
A PE-backed commercial HVAC services company runs 18 sellers across two branches. A branch manager flags one seller as a will problem. He signed two new maintenance agreements last quarter, and the branch plan assumed six. The manager's read is that he stays busy with easy work and avoids new business.
Before deciding, the manager works alongside him for two weeks and tracks where a typical 50-hour week goes. Twenty hours go to pricing repair quotes that technicians flag on service visits, because the quoting tool needs a seller to build each one. Twelve hours go to renewal paperwork on his existing agreements. Ten hours go to driving between sites. Eight hours are left for new agreements.
- Pricing repair quotes
- Renewal paperwork
- Driving between sites
- New agreements
- Twenty hours a week pricing repair quotes
- The quoting tool needs a seller to build each one
- Prices before asking about the building's equipment history
- Prices before asking what downtime costs the customer
- Nobody had shown him how
The time split explains the volume. The meetings explain the rest. In the three new-agreement meetings the manager joins, the seller prices the agreement before he asks about the building's equipment history or what downtime costs the customer. He prices repair work with ease because a technician has already scoped the job. A new agreement asks him to scope it himself, and nobody had shown him how.
The manager now holds two problems, and neither one is will. The quoting load is a system decision for the branch. The scoping conversation is a skill the manager can coach in live meetings.
FAQ
What is the skill/will matrix in sales?
Skill/will is a common coaching shorthand. Max Landsberg's The Tao of Coaching, first published in 1996, gives a chapter to taking account of others' skill and will. The idea rests on a plain point. Doing a job well takes both the ability to do the work and the drive to do it. The label is only as good as the evidence behind it, so gather what you have seen before you decide which side of the line someone sits on.
Can a skill problem look like a will problem?
Yes. People steer away from work they find hard, especially when others can watch them struggle. A seller who avoids new-business meetings may lack the skill and stay busy with work they already know. From a distance that reads as low effort. Working alongside them on the work they avoid is the fastest way to see which it is.
How do you coach a salesperson who has the skill but not the drive?
Be sure of the diagnosis first, because the questions above often turn up a skill or system cause. If the evidence still points to drive, ask what has changed for the person and what they want from the role. Listen for a shift in their situation before you treat low drive as part of who they are.
When does a performance improvement plan make sense for a sales rep?
A performance improvement plan puts an expectation and a timeline in writing. It works best after the person knows what good looks like and has had coaching inside a system that lets the result happen. Used earlier, it can document a gap the company owns. Involve HR and follow your own employment rules before you start one.
Sources
- A Meta-Analysis of the Interactive, Additive, and Relative Effects of Cognitive Ability and Motivation on Performance (Van Iddekinge, Aguinis, Mackey and DeOrtentiis, Journal of Management, 2018) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Drivers of Sales Performance: A Contemporary Meta-Analysis (Verbeke, Dietz and Verwaal, ERIM Report Series, Jul 2010) checked 10 Oct 2026
- The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome (Manzoni and Barsoux, Harvard Business Review, Mar-Apr 1998) checked 10 Oct 2026
- The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail (Manzoni and Barsoux, Harvard Business School Press, 2002), INSEAD checked 10 Oct 2026
- Deming quote on troubles that belong to the system, citing Out of the Crisis (The W. Edwards Deming Institute) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Red Bead Experiment (The W. Edwards Deming Institute) checked 10 Oct 2026
- The Tao of Coaching, front matter and contents (Max Landsberg, Profile Books edition, 2015; first published by HarperCollins, 1996) checked 10 Oct 2026
- The Tao of Coaching (Max Landsberg, HarperCollins, 1996), Internet Archive catalog record checked 10 Oct 2026